Journeying Home Together
This post was originally published on October 17, 2014, when the Ebola scare was in full swing. Recent events – though different – have stirred some of the same emotions in our collective heart, so I thought it might serve us all well to revisit this message. We’re in this mess together, friends. The other night I woke up in tangled sheets, damp from sweat and disoriented from a dream.
I’d seen her at church for awhile – how long, I’m not sure, because I was in my own self-imposed solitary confinement and wasn’t fully aware of anything going on outside of myself. But I had seen her, and based on what I saw, I had my assumptions. She was in *that* community group, so she was obviously one of the popular kids. (Seriously. This is how I think.
My husband and I aren’t big watchers of (current) TV shows. If we’re going to watch anything on TV, our default is “Friends” reruns on Netflix. We’ve seen the entire series way too many times because honestly, there’s just not much on the few channels we get that we’re interested in watching. (Also, as a side note, we’re now incapable of having an entire conversation without a reference to the
I was walking across our back yard the other day, our outdoor cats weaving around my ankles, when I stopped in my tracks. (The cats were very confused.) Out of nowhere, I was powerfully struck by what I saw happening around me in nature. It’s happened many times before, certainly: noticing cloud shapes and sunsets and sunrise colors, usually. (My husband says I’m always looking up, and he doesn’t mean
A week or so ago my daughter and I took a road trip with my dad. We traveled the (longer than I remembered) trip to Alabama for the homecoming celebration of a tiny country church my great-great-great-great grandparents planted in 1835. It was an incredible trip, full of eye-opening stories and insights to the power of legacy and time with family we rarely get to see. It was also an exhausting
My husband was waiting for me to finish my nightly bedtime routine as I filled him in on all that had happened at a writing workshop I’d attended earlier that day. I leaned on the bathroom counter, my face lathered with soap, and said, “I just don’t want to be ‘the depression and anxiety girl’.” The workshop had done its job: it clarified my niche in writing and helped me to narrow my
I had a dream last week in which I was driving a huge truck. It wasn’t just any truck, either, but one of those massive ones they use in the rock quarry down the road from my house. One of those dump trucks on steroids, that dwarf school buses and make semi-trucks look like toys. One of those whose gargantuan spare tires require a police escort down the interstate. One of those. I drive
My daughter and I were in a minor accident this past Sunday on our way home from church. It happened at an intersection we drive through several times a week, and as we passed it last night I took a deep breath and told her, “All right! We did it!” She was understandably confused. The thing is, I tend to get superstitious about things like that. I don’t necessarily think
These words have been simmering for almost three weeks now, and even as I sit ready to tell the story I’m not sure they’re ready. It’s a story that must be told, though, and because time has a way of smoothing out the edges of what cuts us deeply – in good or bad ways – I need to make sure to get these words down while I can. The
When I was a freshman in high school, I had an intense crush on an older boy. We’re talking intense, y’all. It was orderline obsessive, actually, and looking back, my behavior and feelings were completely unwarranted. I hardly knew him, save our experiences in first period Health & Safety class, and he literally didn’t know I existed. As friends can do, mine were determined to change that. Dissatisfied with my
